


you feel like the sun on my face

by hisgirltuesday (tidesong)



Category: Penryn & the End of Days - Susan Ee
Genre: Character Study, Cunnilingus, Domestic Fluff, Earn Your Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, F/M, Light Angst, Penryn needs a hug, Post-Canon, post EoD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:28:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26688187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tidesong/pseuds/hisgirltuesday
Summary: It rains for six days straight. She thinks that there’s a lesson to be learned there, or maybe it was the universe’s way of telling her to stop doing things to make the world cry.
Relationships: Raphael "Raffe"/Penryn Young
Comments: 9
Kudos: 20





	you feel like the sun on my face

**Author's Note:**

> title is a line taken from favorite place by all time low.

She’s pushing Paige on the swings when she hears it: a low, rumbling sound echoing in the distance. The wind picks up and soon, she’s brushing stray strands of hair away from her face as she continues pushing her sister higher and higher.

In hindsight, Penryn wasn’t surprised. The skies had been cloudy and downright gloomy for the past couple of days, so it was bound to happen sooner or later. It’s times like these when she misses the seven-day weather forecasts of the World Before—even though they were sometimes so inaccurate that half the time it was more like a three-day forecast—because she’s not sure if she even has an umbrella or even time to scavenge around for them before the storm hits. 

The sky rumbles again and Penryn stops pushing her sister, letting physics take over as the swing gradually drops lower and lower. When it finally stops, Paige drags the tip of her shoes in the sand and looks at her, all doe-eyed and pleading. 

“One more time, Penryn,” she says, letting her legs hang in the air, showing no signs of getting off.

Penryn glances at the rapidly darkening sky and debates if it’s the day that she decides to push her luck. 

“Please,” adds Paige, suddenly remembering her manners. _Ask and you shall receive_ , or something like that.

If this was the World Before, Penryn knows that she would’ve said no and promised Paige that they would have a longer session tomorrow. If that didn’t work, she would’ve promised Paige an extra serving of ice cream for dessert after dinner. And if that still didn’t work, Penryn would’ve stopped by the grocery store on the way home and let Paige pick whatever her candy of the day was. But this was the World After, and her sister only has an appetite for raw meat and rejects any other kind of food. She’s saved her sister from bloodthirsty angels with less than...angelic intentions, went to Hell and back (figuratively and literally), and managed to survive against all the odds. 

So really, she should be fucking grateful that they were alive and Paige could still swing in a park that has clearly seen better days.

Worrying about rain suddenly seems so silly then; something as insignificant as getting wet should be on the bottom of her list of potential problems. _Live for today, because tomorrow is not guaranteed_ , she thinks.

Penryn holds in her sigh, begs the heavens to have mercy, and begins to push Paige higher and higher.

* * *

When it rains, it pours. 

By the third rumble of thunder, Penryn should’ve ignored the way Paige’s laugh carried over the wind and the way her smile lit up her face and told her sister that it was finally time to go. By the fourth, Penryn should’ve called it quits, taken Paige’s hand, and speedwalked them back to their borrowing-for-now house a block away. So really, Penryn only had herself to blame when the skies got darker and darker and the heavens finally opened up. 

She hoists Paige onto her back when the first drops of rain begin to fall. And only when the rain shows no signs of relenting does she start running back home, Paige’s small hands tightening around her shoulders and legs around her waist. 

To say that she’s soaked when they reach their house is an understatement. Paige is relatively dry; Penryn had thrown her windbreaker over her sister before running back. She’s busy brushing wet strands of hair away from her face when the door opens and Raffe peeks out.

He doesn’t bother hiding the amused smile on his face when he takes her in, dark eyes sweeping over her and Paige, lingering on her flushed face and disheveled appearance. She suddenly has the urge to wipe it off his face.

“It started raining!” Paige sing-songs before stepping around Raffe and into the house. Raffe leans against the doorframe and Penryn stares him down, not wanting to be the first to break whatever staring contest he seems to have started. 

“You’re dripping all over the welcome mat,” Raffe says as a greeting, eyes never leaving her face. He backs up and opens the door a little wider, motioning for her to come in.

“Well, Paige wanted to spend more time at the park and I didn’t want to tell her no,” Penryn replies, bending down and unlacing her shoes. When she tries to move inside the house, Raffe purposely shifts in front of her, arms spread apart.

Penryn is wet and cranky and tired, so she throws him a glare that probably lacked heat. “Weren’t you telling me to come in earlier?”

Raffe still has that stupid half-smile on his face. It makes her glare falter as she lets her eyes fall to his lips before she meets his eyes. He notices this and his smirk grows. “You’re forgetting payment.” 

Her mouth drops and she snaps it closed before he could say something about catching flies or something. “Payment?” she splutters. _The audacity of this angel_ , she thinks, then, _oh._ Oh. Her brain is slow to catch up on his hint. She must’ve dropped half of it when she was running in the rain.

Penryn takes a step up until she’s practically underneath his chin when she fists his T-shirt in her hand and yanks him down. Maybe she’s overzealous, but their teeth knock together right after his forehead grazes hers. Raffe’s hands card through her hair as he kisses her back, slanting his mouth to hers. Somewhere in the kiss she realizes that he’s closed the door and maneuvered them so her back is pressed up against it. She pulls him closer, biting at his lower lip _just so_. She wants him to taste the salt on her lips with the rain, wants to make him _feel_. 

When they break apart, a small part of her is glad to see the smirk wiped clean off his face. They’re catching their breaths and Penryn sees the same kind of heat—want—reflected in his eyes. 

Penryn’s pretty sure she would’ve leaned in and kissed him again, but she’s now acutely aware of how badly her wet clothes are sticking to her and how her hair is probably dripping water everywhere. So the only logical thing to do was turn around and begin the walk to her room for a shower and a change of clothes. 

She passes by the kitchen and sees Paige sitting on top of the stove, taking small nibbles of a plate of ground beef. Her little sister is peering out of the kitchen window, eyes peering intently at the world beyond that was currently washed in shades of gray and blanketed by the sound of water on glass. 

“The sky is crying,” Paige hums. The words echo in the kitchen. “Why is that?” 

Raffe laughs behind her. Penryn braces herself for whatever response Raffe has prepared. She doesn’t need to look back to see the way his eyes twinkle and lips curl into a self-satisfied smile.

“Why don’t you ask Penryn what she did?”

 _The audacity_ , she thinks again. So Penryn does the most logical thing that comes to mind.

She spins around and hugs him, making sure to squeeze Raffe extra tightly and rubs her head all over his chest. When she’s sure that she’s transferred half her water content to him, she tilts her head up to him. Stands up on her tiptoes, leans in, and _looks_.

“I went to war,” she breathes, featherlight but with the weight of the world.

* * *

Penryn does not notice the puddle that had been slowly growing below her window until she wakes up later that night, half-naked and shivering with the sounds of Paige calling out her name echoing in her mind. Well, the half-naked part was her fault, but she could not find a pair of decent pajama pants—not for the lack of trying—and she’s tired of wearing jeans to bed. They made her legs stiff in the morning and sometimes she’d woken up in the middle of the night with sweaty legs. So for the past month, she’s just been wearing an oversized sweater just long enough to cover her butt.

It takes her eyes a couple of minutes for her eyes to adjust, for her to catch her breath and calm her racing mind. 

She doesn’t have nightmares often. Maybe twice a week, tops. Some nights she thinks that it was normal—she’s gone to places no person has ever gone before, broken a lot of things that weren’t meant to be broken, and done things that weren’t meant to be done. She sees their faces, sometimes. People that she could’ve saved. Or tried to, anyway. Of how she didn’t—couldn’t—be enough. Tonight, it had been Paige. 

It was the same dream again. The most common one, if she admits. She’s pushing Paige down the street from their old condo in Silicon Valley, right back at where it all started. The fight. Sometimes she takes different streets. Sometimes she goes the opposite direction. But no matter what, Paige still ends up gone and she’s always down on the concrete on her knees, face staring up at the burning sunset with the taste of ash in her mouth. And then, she wakes up with the weight of the world on her shoulders.

It plays out like a loop, on repeat.

 _Calm down,_ she thinks. _Sometimes you can do everything right and still fail_.

In a corner of her mind she knows this is true. But knowing it did nothing to ease the guilt that clung to her like a second skin.

It’s when she decides to get up from her bed for a glass of water when her feet touch the cold. 

Instinctively, she yanks her feet back onto the bed. It takes her a split second to realize that it’s not blood and why was there water underneath her bed? Then, _oh._

She’d totally forgotten about her broken window. Penryn pinches the bridge of her nose and knows that she pushed her luck too far in the afternoon. On regular days, she’d learned to live with it. On her lazy days, she was grateful that she could feel a breeze without opening her window. Penryn had far more lazy days, so it was easy to forget that it was even a problem in the first place.

Penryn peels back the curtains and stares warily at the jagged cut of glass right down the middle of the window. It had not been a clean break, and some pieces were missing. The rain was steadily tricking down the wall, to her floor, and to her bed. 

Her reflection, superimposed in the glass, arches an eyebrow at her. _Are you gonna sit there, or are you gonna fix this?_

Penryn recognizes a challenge when she sees one.

With a sigh, she gets off her bed and walks to the bathroom in her underwear, searching for a towel and a bucket. 

* * *

Lack of sleep is strongly correlated with general crankiness and moodiness, or so she hears. Penryn is a perfect example of this when she finds herself barely paying attention to the meeting she has with other members of the Resistance in the morning in an elementary school that had seen better days. The storm in the morning did nothing to alleviate her already sour mood, so her crankiness was compounded with the drone of voices around her.

Half the time she thinks that the meetings were useless—people could never agree or there were just too many conflicts of interest that it was just a headache to keep track of everything. If it was up to her, she would hand off her notetaking to someone else. She’d been tempted many times, but there’s always something that stops her.

It’s the people with hungry eyes at every meeting, the ones fighting ever so subtly to tip the scales in their favor. With great power comes responsibility, or something like that. Those men were bankrupt in the second department. So, she still dutifully takes notes and offers her input when it was asked, and even if she wasn’t asked. Moreso on the latter than the former. She has more than a hunch that they were not terribly thrilled to take advice from a barely legal adult. 

( _Barely legal was of the world before_ , she reminds herself. _Here’s the world after. I fought in a war. I make my own rules._ )

It’s a shame that she was nodding off today because she almost misses it. Almost misses the way the conversation heats up and something tells her they’re waiting for her response. The hairs on the back of her neck prickle and she grips her pen tighter. Thunder rumbles in the distance.

“As I was saying,” someone on the other end of the room speaks, “How can we trust the angels after everything that they’ve done? What if this is just an act so they can finish what they’ve started?”

The voice is grating and puts her nerves on edge. The more pragmatic part of her says that it’s a valid fear. He wasn’t the one who consorted with angels daily and lived with one. 

The room is silent and Penryn realizes that everyone is probably busy pretending to not act like they’re waiting for her reaction, judging from the way they’re avoiding her eyes except for the man in the corner who spoke. She raises her gaze and meets his, head-on. Penryn holds in her sigh and tries to choose her words carefully. 

“It’s not,” she says finally. She’s a little surprised (and proud) at how her voice is steady. “They didn’t want a war any more than we did. You can take that in as you will. And because there’s no way to take it all back, they’ve been trying to make it right.” Penryn blinks and thinks of the late nights Raffe and his Watchers had helped rebuild places in their small community. Thinks of the way they’ve probably had to endure a lot more than thinly veiled hostility on both sides. She didn’t want them to feel like they’ve escaped from one Hell only to land in another. They deserved better. They all did. 

“I’m not asking you to trust them”—she forces this out of her mouth—“but believe me when I say that there’s not going to be another war. And we need their help to fix what’s been broken.”

This was clearly the wrong thing to say, because the man stands up so suddenly that his chair falls back. His eyes are dark with anger and Penryn tries not to flinch. 

“Help?” Angry Eyes snarls. Lightning in the window splits the room in two. “We wouldn’t be in this position if it wasn’t for them. We wouldn’t be living with the shambles of civilization if it wasn’t for them.” 

She hates the way he has a point. But of course, he’s still missing the bigger picture. But Penryn doesn’t. She remembers the way humanity turned their backs on each other the second things went downhill and it was everybody for themselves. Remembers the Obadiah had silently pleaded with her to _lead_ , to do _something,_ a split second before he’d died and it was chaos from then thereafter. 

Penryn wants to lay all of this on him. Wants to be mean and shut him down, wants to say _what’s your excuse when all of your brothers turned on one another? You couldn’t even work together back then._ But she doesn’t. Those are her demons. And she’s not that person anymore—she’s trying.

When she speaks again, she can hardly recognize her voice. Penryn feels everywhere and nowhere at once. 

“We have to do it together,” she says. “Or not at all.”

Penryn knows how it felt. The notion of trying to make things right. Redemption of a kind, or coming damn close to it. She sees it in the way Raffe looks at her when he thinks she’s not looking and when she’s pretending not to look at him—in the sad tilt of his mouth, in the hollow of his eyes—it says, _I’m sorry. Know that I tried. Know that I wanted it to be enough._

Penryn wants to tell him, _I know_. And she does—how can she not? She sees it in her dreams where she’s trying to save Paige one more time, when she’s walking past houses and wondering about the people that used to live there, once upon a time. She wants to believe that she’d tried and it was enough. That she was enough. 

Thunder shakes the room. 

Penryn thinks, _I’m trying, I’m trying, I’m trying,_ to the beat of the rain.

* * *

Her mom comes and goes. 

She’d long since given up on persuading her mom to stay because she knows better than anyone else that her mother could take care of herself. If anything, she should be concerned for the people her mom comes across. 

Penryn shakes her umbrella and takes off her windbreaker before she walks into the house, socks padding softly against the hardwood. No one is home; the silence tells her that much. She passes by the kitchen and sees three eggs on the kitchen table. It means, _Paige is safe. Paige is with me_. Penryn blinks and tries not to think about which cult member had the honors to serve her little sister today. Once upon a time, she’d fought against that idea vehemently. The last time she’d tried to say no, her mom had backhanded her before she’d even had time to react and asked if she had a better solution for her sister. She didn’t, of course, and that had been the end of it. 

She heats up some canned soup and eats some saltine crackers. Slides down and sits down on the kitchen floor, back against the stove. Despite her better judgment, she takes out the bottle of ‘85 Cabernet she’d hidden underneath the sink and uncorks it. Takes a swig to drown out her demons and the sound of the rain, drinks and tries to ignore the way the silence threatens to swallow her whole. 

Penryn thinks of Raffe even as her eyes close.

She should’ve said something to him, on that night. She remembers the wild light in his dark eyes, the way he’d gripped her as if she was one second from slipping away. How he’d kissed her with the desperation of a dying man. 

She should’ve said something. 

Should’ve said, _It was enough._

 _You were enough_.

* * *

Penryn wakes up in her bed even though she knows she’d passed out in the kitchen. She doesn’t read too much into that fact except to garner that Raffe was home and would probably tell her that drinking was an unhealthy coping mechanism. 

Her mouth is dry and when she licks her lips she can still taste hints of blackberry and earth. The darkness beyond her window does nothing to signal to her about what time it was in the night and she reluctantly rolls off her bed to shower and brush her teeth. 

Later, when she’s clean and clad in her oversized sweated and in fresh underwear does she let herself dream. 

It was the last day of summer, and she was with Raffe downstairs laying down on his couch. He’d insisted on sleeping in the living room next to the door at their last safehouse, after Penryn had offhandedly mentioned that she’d seen some suspicious looking people lurking around the neighborhood. It was half-past four and she was in his arms, basking in the late afternoon light. She’d worn a pale yellow sundress, the only dress that fit. They’d made out for a bit, then he’d pulled away and sat back up after they managed to catch their breaths. The sunlight made her sleepy, and she’d closed her eyes briefly, enjoying the warmth on her face. 

He’d pulled her legs on his lap and traced lazy circles on her thighs. Unconsciously, she’d spread her legs a little wider and felt his fingers still for a split second before resuming. Higher, a little higher. But not where she really wants him, though. 

Without opening her eyes and with the kind of confidence that could only be found at the bottom of a bottle, she’d taken his right hand and placed it right at the edge of her panties. She’d heard the soft hitch of his breath when he discovered her wet and wanting. 

His movements were lazy and unhurried. He'd pushed her dress up, right around her hips, then took his time with her underwear. She'd whimpered when he sank one of his fingers in her and spread her thighs even more when he began to move. His free hand had gripped one of her legs, squeezing and probably leaving crescent half-moons behind.

She’d opened her eyes, then. They’ve been nothing more than hazy slits when she’d looked up at him, dark profile framed in the late afternoon sunlight. She’d memorized the sight, the way he’d looked at her, like how she was everything and everywhere at once. 

She’d gotten off like that, with two of his fingers knuckle deep inside of her. Gotten off to the way they curled _just so_ and how he’d ground the flat of his palm against her in a steady rhythm. 

She should’ve pulled him down and kissed him. Tasted his smile bathed in golden light.

It’s that scene that she replays in her mind when she slips her right hand between her legs and shifts her underwear down. She rocks into the palm of or hand and presses two fingers in. Shifts her knees on the mattress and sinks her ankles into her abandoned sheets. 

Her breath speeds up and she thinks of the smile that could rival the sun.

She thinks, _Raffe._

Something in her gut coils, hot and sharp.

Her gasp is half-choked and muffled by her pillow.

Penryn comes down from her high and lets the sound of the rain lull her to sleep. 

* * *

She convinces him to take her shopping in the morning.

Raffe had looked at her and at the kitchen window, where the skies were still gray and rainy. He’d looked back at her, then, something along the lines of, _real nice weather out there. Are you sure_ _you want to go out in that storm_?

She’d finished the last of her stale cereal before answering, albeit a little sheepishly. “I need to fix my window.”

He’d stared at her for a moment in confusion, then understanding. “You still haven’t fixed it?”

“I tried to,” she’d said a little defensively. _Two days ago,_ she'd silently added. “But tape was no match for the rain.”

It had taken a few more tries, but she’d managed to convince Raffe to accompany her on the trip. 

“I need clay or dough,” she’d informed him earlier. “Or maybe even glue.” And after he’d agreed, she’d smiled and handed him another list full of things that they should probably look for—food, toiletries, more clothes for Paige—and watched him throw a half-hearted glare at her.

They’d ended up at the remains of what was once a Target in the world before. It looks eerie in the rain, and Penryn really hopes that she could find the things that she’d needed. The interior was trashed, as expected, and soon she’d suggested that they split up to make finding things easier.

And that was how she’d found herself picking through what was once the office supplies section. It’s next to impossible to sift through what’s been crushed or destroyed as she looks for glue. And when she does find a bottle, it has been dried up. 

Penryn bites out a curse and begins to look for alternatives. 

_Plastic,_ she thinks. _Plastic is waterproof, maybe a tarp—oh._

She finds herself in the bath section next, staring at the selection of shower curtains. She supposes that she could probably cut a square up and tape the edges around the window. There’s a couple of suitable options, and Penryn reaches for the one that looks the sturdiest.

She’s so engrossed in her task that she almost misses the telltale crunch of someone’s footsteps moving closer.

Almost.

Her hand instinctively flies to Pooky Bear at her hip, and she looks to her right. She holds in a breath as a girl no older than herself steps out of the shadows, arms shouldering a tote bag. Penryn still doesn’t let her guard down and there’s a weary staredown. 

Finally, the girl relents and puts her hands up but still clutches the bag to her chest.

“Sorry for startling you,” she says, voice low and oddly melodic. “Penryn, right? The girl with the angel.” 

_The girl with the angel._ Was that really what she’d been reduced to? Known for? 

“Yeah, that's me.” Penryn attempts a smile and hopes it looks friendlier than it feels. 

There’s a beat of silence between them and Penryn wonders if there was a polite way of extracting herself from this situation until the girl speaks again, words jumbled and in a rush.

“I’m May,” she says. “I, um, was at the Resistance meeting yesterday. My dad was speaking. Um, the one that you were arguing with. Near the end of the meeting,” she finishes lamely.

Oh, Penryn thinks. Angry Eyes. The one who didn’t believe in the angels. Or her, for that matter. She wonders what she’s supposed to say to this piece of new information. 

May continues on, saving her from a response. “We lost everything when the angels attacked. I know that’s not much to have a claim on anything, because everyone else is on the same boat, but my father lost his company and everything he’d worked for. Twenty years gone in an instant, he said.” May looks at her, then. “I know what you were asking at the meeting. But I just wanted you to know...what his line of reasoning is…” Her voice trails off and she lets out a nervous laugh. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this...But I guess I just wanted you to know. Where we’re all coming from.”

And Penryn understands. She supposes May could’ve laid it down on her about how she didn’t understand what people have been through, didn’t understand how loss took many different forms. 

“Thank you for telling me.” She tries to pour every ounce of sincerity she has in those words. 

May nods, looks like she wants to say something else, and hesitates. Penryn manages a half-smile in encouragement. 

“Does it...does it get easier?” 

Penryn feels her smile wobble. There was no point in lying. “I don’t know,” she says truthfully. “But I really hope it does.”

* * *

Penryn spends the rest of the day fixing up the house. She gets her window patched up, taped over with a sturdy plastic shower curtain. She empties the bucket beneath her window and checks up on the other rooms in the house, making sure everything was in order. 

For dinner, she splits canned ravioli and chicken noodle soup with Raffe. He tells her what he’s been up to with the Watchers and entertains her with stories about their attempts to learn how to “catch up with the times.” In turn, she tells him about her meeting with the Resistance members. She catches the way a shadow flickers over his face so quickly that she wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it in the first place. Either way, she still tells him about May, about their loss. About the burden some people just had to carry with them in life.

And later, when she wakes up half-naked and shivering from another dream, she doesn’t think twice when she rolls out of bed and makes her way down the hallway to the living room to Raffe’s couch. He’s sleeping on his side, dutifully facing the door. 

She walks over and slowly lowers herself down, tucking herself into the crook of his arms. 

“Penryn?” his voice is barely a whisper. 

“I couldn’t sleep,” she admits quietly, and she feels his arms shift and tighten around her waist. 

“It’s ok,” he murmurs, already drifting off. “I’ve got you.”

“I’m sorry,” Penryn says into his chest. _Say it._ “I never should have doubted you.”

If he hears her, Raffe doesn’t reply. 

That night, she lets the sound of his heartbeat lull her back to sleep.

* * *

The rain lightens to a drizzle the next day. She’d mulled over the decision to bring Raffe and his Watchers into the meeting at breakfast, but in the end, Raffe had told her that he’d trusted and respected her decision either way. 

So thirty minutes before the meeting was supposed to start, she’d walked out of her house to one two doors over, bracing herself as she knocked on the door. It was something like a bad joke: How many Watchers does it take to answer the door?

This time, it’s Cyclone who answers the door first, but it doesn’t matter because Howler is right behind him (later, Howler will inform her that he heard the knock _first_ ) and Thermo and Hawk are sticking their heads out of the window, not bothering to be discreet. 

“Maggot Slayer!” Howler elbowed Cyclone out of the way and stood in front of her. He stares at her with something bordering on mild displeasure. “You’re three days late.” 

Penryn blinks and wracks her brain for anything important she might’ve forgotten. She comes up empty and reasons that if it was a life or death matter, they could’ve walked two doors over. 

Her confusion must’ve shown on her face because Howler shakes his head at her. 

“It’s been three days since you’ve graced us with your presence,” Hawk clarifies from his spot at the open window. 

_Oh._ Oh. She thinks of the night spent with the bottle of ‘85. 

“I’m sorry,” she finds herself saying. “Had a rough meeting that day, and I overslept.” There. Half of the truth. 

Howler waves away the apology. “Now that we’ve established that you forgot about our weekly dinner nights, I’m going to take a guess that you have something to tell us if you came all this way at eight in the morning.”

Penryn shifts nervously on her feet, suddenly feeling the self-doubt creeping up. 

“Oh, about that. I was hoping that you guys could come with me to the Resistance meeting today.”

Cyclone tilts his head. “We’ve never been.” 

That was true. Raffe and the Watchers spent most days rebuilding places and clearing roads of debris. A thankless job, really, and if Penryn had her way she’d rather be outside with them. 

“Yes. I was hoping to use you as an example—“

Howler cuts her off. “An example of fine male specimens?”

“Upstanding citizens?” added Thermo. 

“Role models?” 

Penryn pinches the bridge of her nose. Good thing she came over early. 

* * *

In the end, Penryn was glad that she’d managed to shepherd Raffe the Watchers in the room before people started to trickle in. The rain picks up again _—_ shame, she thinks _—_ and she’s feeling the beginnings of a panic attack as she grips the edges of her notes. _What if she manages to piss more people off? What if this whole thing blows up in her face? What if—_

Raffe places a steady hand on her back as she watches familiar faces crowd into the room, forcing herself not to flinch as May’s father stands opposite of her. 

“I’ve got you.” 

Penryn takes a deep breath and lets out a slow exhale. 

She imagines telling people the story of the Watchers. About the centuries spent in Hell, being chained and punished for love. Lets the gravity of that fact sink in by itself. Once upon a time, they all learned how to work together. To be together. She knows that everyone has their own personal demons. Knows that behind every person in the room, there is a burden to carry. Maybe sometimes it can feel like it’s too much. Maybe sometimes it makes you feel like you’d rather sink or swim. 

_I know_ , she imagines herself saying. _And I’m not going to ask you to forgive and forget everything that’s happened. What I want is for us to lighten it a little bit together_. 

So when the time comes and everyone is looking at her expectantly, Penryn steps forward. 

And she tells them. 

* * *

It’s getting late and Raffe still hasn’t come home. They had parted ways after the meeting, and she hasn’t seen him all day since. The house is still empty and Penryn wonders how Paige is. Or her mother, for that matter. 

Penryn had made herself soup and crackers for dinner again. This time, she eats on the couch, criss-cross-applesauce, television playing static in the background. And maybe because she’s feeling a little vindictive, she heads into the shower after dinner and stays under the hot water until it turns cold. 

She turns on every lamp in the house _—_ a grand total of _three—_ and settles back into the couch, pulling Raffe’s blanket over her bare legs. Sometimes she thinks she should make more of an effort to wear pants around the house, but no one had complained, so she didn’t. Raffe certainly didn’t. 

The house is too quiet. 

_Silence_ , she thinks, _has a way of making you feel it_. 

It leaves her with thoughts she’d rather not think about. It brings her failures front and center, brings her demons out to play. She worries about Paige, now. She’s talked it over to any person with any kind of medical background in the Resistance, but all she’s gotten were half-answers. 

_And what about_ you _, Penryn? Who are you? What do you want?_

She stumbles on her answers. _I’m Penryn Young and I’m trying_ , she thinks. _I’m trying_. 

And because Penryn is feeling some kind of way, she finds the bottle of Honey Jack that she’s squirreled away in the oven and pours herself a shot. 

It burns as it goes down. A part of her is glad it goes. She needs to focus on something other than feeling that she wasn’t enough. 

Penryn turns up the television, lies down on the couch, and closes her eyes. 

And that is how Raffe finds her when he barges in the front door, soaked to the bone and letting the rain in with him. He takes one look at her and whirls to the bathroom, takes the quickest shower, and changes into dry clothes in the span of what felt like five minutes. 

She’s still sprawled out on his couch, eyes closed. She hears his footsteps as he walks closer to her, loud and hurried. 

Penryn expects him to be mad. Expects him to throw out Jack the way he did with Cabernet. Expects him to say that she’s a bad case with alcohol. 

Instead, Raffe sits on the end of the couch and lifts her head onto his lap. He combs his hands through her hair, and she nearly bursts into tears. This whole thing was so unfair. Or maybe it was just her _—_ he had experience moving on. He had experience with guilt, loss. _Regret_. It probably came with the package of being so old and all. And here she was, eighteen and none the wiser. 

“Talk to me, Penryn.” His voice sounds close and a million miles away at once. 

“You saved me,” she blurts out; just like that, it’s out. Her breaths are coming out in short gasps and fuck, she really did have too much. “You didn’t have to, but you did. Why?”

And there it was—stupid, stupid Penryn. The second it leaves her mouth she wishes she could take it back. She sees the flash of pain on his face before it’s gone. But oh, his eyes—she sees it in there. He looks wounded, and the dim light casts shadows over his face. She hates that she’s the one that put that look in there. When he speaks, his voice is raw.

“If I didn’t,” he says over the sounds of thunder, “I would’ve regretted it for the rest of my life.”

She sees her demons in him when he draws in a breath, the sound harsh and rattling. 

“If I had let you go,” he says, closing his eyes in a silent admission, “That would’ve been a weight I could not have carried.” 

The words come over to her easily. 

_Here_ , she wants to say. _This is me. This is who I am and maybe I want you to know how my laughter sounded like before I earned my demons._

_I want to see how you looked like before the anger took root in your bones and the world turned you inside out._

_I want to see who you were before you went to war_. 

The alcohol is making her brain foggy. She wants to tell him. Wants to tell him that she understands and hopes he does too. Wants to tell him that she sees him, an acceptance and an apology rolled into one. And maybe she does end up telling him, in half-coherent sentences through the haze, because all of a sudden there’s a silent battle in his eyes, one that she’s seen before and is oh-so-familiar. There’s fire and hunger and a different type of yearning. 

She wants it. 

His gaze cuts through all the noise. His touch reaches bone deep, burns everlasting. Raffe reaches for her, and she lets him pull her close. Lets him taste the honey and smoke on her lips. She moans into his mouth when his hands move lower, down her back before resting on her hips, then squeezing her ass.

Penryn fists her hands in his hair and lets him maneuver them on the couch until he’s got one knee shoved in between her legs and he’s pressing down on all the right places. He moves his mouth down to her neck and kisses the spot right above her collarbone. His hands slip under her sweater and roughly palms her breasts, fingers tweaking a nipple.

“Raffe,” she breathes when he hauls it over her head. He doesn’t respond as he lets his eyes rake over her bare figure, clad only in a pair of white panties. _Unfair_ , some primal part of her mind thinks. _He still has his shirt on_. She sits up and fists the bottom of his shirt. He looks down at her with half-lidded eyes. She hopes his brain is as short-circuited as hers.

“Off,” she whispers. He obliges, pausing slightly to maneuver it over his wings, and the second it’s off she yanks him back down again and crushes her mouth to his. She runs her hands down his back, keeping her fingertips light as they traced over his scars. He kisses a trail down her neck, to her breasts, and pauses right at her belly button. Raffe’s breathing hard, and he meets her eyes when he slowly pulls her underwear down her thighs. 

“You’re perfect.” She thinks he hears him say. She can’t really tell—his voice is way too soft and low and the storm outside was not helping things. Raffe lowers himself to his elbows and tugs her closer so that her thighs are bracketing his head. Penryn lefts out an undignified whimper at the motion.

“Don’t worry,” he says, half to himself. “Let me take care of you.”

Without another word, his mouth is on her. Raffe eats her out like he’s a man starved, tongue working mercilessly against her folds. She barely registers the way he throws one trembling leg over his shoulder and she’s not sure who is in control anymore when he licks one long stripe from her entrance to the bundle of nerves he’s probably familiar with now. Penryn lets out a soft cry and fists his hair when he sucks _just so_ and suddenly he is her undoing. He sees her through her orgasm, letting her ride herself on his mouth when she comes. 

She’s still shaking through the haze when he pulls away slightly; she is dimly aware that Raffe’s taking off his pants and soon he’s crawling right back to her. Penryn tastes herself on his lips when he kisses her, feels how hard and heavy he is on the inside of her thighs. She hooks her legs to the back of his knees and urges him closer. 

_Please,_ she thinks. _I want this._

Maybe she says it out loud because she can practically feel his smile against her neck. 

“Tell me what you want,” he breathes in her ear. 

_You_ , she hears herself say over the rain. _You,_ _you_ , _you._

He slides in her at that admission. The first few inches are easy and Penryn shifts her hips, canting upwards for him. In a distant corner of her mind, she thinks that they should probably do it more often. Raffe squeezes her hips and thrusts, one smooth, solid motion. Penny can’t fight the moans that escape her lips when he bottoms out. 

“I want to hear you,” she thinks she hears him say. It’s hard to focus on things right now when her body is beyond the throes of pleasure. He alternates between shallow and deep thrusts as she rocks her hips up. She finds a pace that works and he quickly matches it, hands palming her ass. Penryn grips his back, not caring if she leaves little half-moons in her wake. She’s still sensitized from her earlier orgasm, and it doesn’t take long for something in her gut to coil again. Raffe moans into her neck and she squeezes her eyes shut when he finds that spot inside in her. 

“Raffe,” she whimpers. She doesn’t have to finish her sentence because he already knows, one hand moving from her hips to the sensitive bundle of nerves between them. 

Raffe fucks her through her orgasm, helping her ride through the high before coming back down. He groans into her mouth, and soon pulls out and spills himself on the inside of her thighs. He wraps an arm around her and kisses the hollow of her neck, curling his body around hers. 

Later, when they’ve cleaned up and Raffe has carried them both to bed, does Penryn find herself saying what she should’ve said ages ago. 

“It was enough,” she whispers into the crook of his neck. Raffe looks down his nose at her and she lets the feel of his heart below her fingertips steady her voice. “I know that you tried. Know that you did everything you could and I never should’ve thought otherwise. I doubted you, and in turn, I doubted myself. And that was a weight I never should’ve carried.” 

Raffe hums and wraps his arms around her, tight. 

“Just so we’re clear,” he murmurs. “I would do it all over again.”

* * *

It rains for six days straight. She thinks that there’s a lesson to be learned there, somewhere in between the lines. It goes, _God made the earth in six days and rested on the seventh._ It goes, _after the seventh is a new beginning._ Where there was a garden in Eden and two people who didn’t know any better. Didn’t know about the darkness if they’ve never left the light. It goes, _she eats the apple,_ and _here is the fall from grace._

(It’s a timeline if she ever saw one. The world before and the world after. 

Or maybe it’s just all in her head. She’s always been too good at looking far too deep into shallow things. Looking for answers in godforsaken places. Creating something from nothing. If anything, maybe it was the universe’s way of telling her to stop doing things to make the world cry.)

Penryn closes her eyes, nestles closer to Raffe, and presses her lips to the pulse point of his neck. 

_You,_ she thinks, _you can be my seventh._

* * *

One morning, Penryn wakes up and she’s greeted with a muted blue sky. 

Penryn rubs her eyes, does a double-take at her window, and it’s only when she doesn’t hear the patter of rain does she finally let herself breathe. There’s a heavy arm thrown around her waist and her legs are definitely underneath Raffe’s, but she manages to sit up and stare at the world beyond her window. It feels like ages since she’s seen the sun.

Raffe mumbles in protest when she shrugs his arm off, but stops when she leans down and kisses him, softly. He opens his eyes and sends her a sleepy smile.

Penryn brushes some hair out of his face and climbs out of her bed, padding over to the window and sweeps the curtains aside.

There, bathed in the soft morning light, Penryn feels lighter than she’s felt in days. _This is it_ , she thinks, _this is enough_. 

It’s the kind of feeling that creeps up on you, she supposes. Look the other way and you might miss it. It’s like stepping out into the sun after the rain. The first light of dawn after the night. Or coming home. 

New beginnings, or something like that.

“Come back,” Raffe says from her bed, voice husky but full of promise.

She does.


End file.
